Currently, the primary method of transferring funds into gaming devices and systems is through cash or tickets such as “monetary value” or ticket-in/ticket-out (TITO) tickets. In addition, funds may be transferred into gaming and amusement devices and systems via cash in the form of paper currency or coins, “monetary value cards”, game tokens, or coupons. The funds are usually converted into gaming or amusement credits through a cash acceptance device, such as a coin acceptor, bill acceptor, or card reader associated with the gaming device. Gaming or amusement credits on a gaming machine may be exported onto monetary value tickets or a value onto a card to be used in a gaming or amusement facility. At the direction of the patron, the gaming or amusement credits can be redeemed and converted back into cash. A ticketing system or a value card system is used to read the tickets, print tickets, and write onto the value card the amount to be cashed out at an external kiosk or cashier station.
The gaming or amusement device system normally contains a cash acceptance device, usually referred to as a bill acceptor, to convert cash into game play credits for use on the machine. It may also contain a loyalty card system and/or a ticketing system that includes a ticket reader and a ticket printer to read tickets with game play credit and to print tickets when the patron is ready to cash out such that the value remaining in the gaming or amusement device can be printed on the ticket with a special barcode or system recognizable code for use in another machine or can be redeemed for cash with a cashier or attendant in the specific gaming or amusement facility. Normally, credit is issued on the gaming or amusement device when cash is inserted into the device, or when a ticket with value on it is read by the device, or when a loyalty card is read which can provide free play, thus allowing the patron to play the game. If a patron is playing on a gaming device and runs out of credit and has no more cash to put into the gaming or amusement device, the patron is forced to leave the gaming or amusement device, find an ATM cash machine, kiosk, or cashier station, withdraw cash, and then return to the gaming or amusement device.
Card and/or ticket systems are also used in connection with gaming or amusement machines in environments where the gaming or amusement machines issue and accept cards and/or tickets in lieu of money. Such systems provide a workable cashless system on a local or multi-property level. The casino operator's system redeems an amount of money from the card system for the assigned card and/or from the value imprinted on the ticket through visual or other optical inspection or via a ticket validation system. Card and/or ticketing systems are advantageous because they reduce the amount of cash transactions and the need for the patron to transport and hold large amounts of cash or coins. Consequently, ticketing systems have become common in most gaming and amusement jurisdictions and the applicable hardware is manufactured and supplied as peripheral devices by various manufacturers. Systems in ticket-based gaming environments require each machine to have one or more dedicated devices to read and write cards, tickets, and/or similar physical indicia of game play credit.
The role of card reader devices and/or ticketing machines has recently been expanded to enable patrons to redeem the card value and/or ticket at a gaming or amusement device. As before, the card and/or ticketing system issues cash-out card credit to the card system and/or a monetary-equivalent ticket in response to a patron's cash-out request. In the expanded role, the cash-out card and/or ticket includes information that enables the patron to present the card and/or ticket to a cashier or redemption machine or kiosk. The patron may also re-insert the card and/or ticket into a gaming or amusement device configured to accept card and/or ticket transactions.
In this expanded role, the card and/or ticket accepting gaming or amusement devices must now contain a card and/or ticket reader as well as the card system communication and/or ticket printer. In the expanded system, the cash-out card communicates with a local card system which tracks date and time of cash-out credits for the identification card and the ticket typically contains a barcode, a written ticket amount, the time and date of printing, a numerical representation of the barcode and other identification and validation information specific to the property. To redeem the card and/or ticket for its monetary or non-monetary value, the patron either presents the card and/or ticket to the operator who validates the card and/or ticket and pays the patron an amount of money or prizes, or the patron inserts the card and/or ticket into a card and/or ticket-ready gaming or amusement device, whereby the gaming or amusement device provides the patron with a number of credits equal to the amount represented by or encoded in the card system or on the ticket. It is important to note that these prior art systems rely on physical indicia that are required to be generated (such as by printing by conventional print processes using appropriate electromechanical machines) and required to be read for validation purposes (such as by an electromechanical device including ticket readers, bill acceptors, or the like) in order for the system to function properly. Tickets in these prior art systems cannot be generated, read, or validated by human personnel alone. Humans are not capable of generating tickets of the type known in the prior art without the assistance of specialized electromechanical printing devices. Further, and even when a conventional gaming ticket is presented by a patron to a human cashier, dealer, or other authorized personnel for redemption, the ticket must still be inserted into an appropriate electromechanical redemption device to be read and validated. Further, an inherent characteristic of prior art ticketing systems is that the machine-generated tickets are negotiable and serve as indicia of credit or monetary value that is redeemable by or payable to the bearer upon demand, in some instances subject to criteria including but not limited to ticket expiration dates, reported cases of lost or stolen tickets, and the like.
The controllers of the card and/or ticket-ready gaming devices are adapted to coordinate with the card and/or ticket validation system. For example, when a payout is issued the card and/or ticket is inserted into a card and/or ticket reader equipped in a gaming or amusement device, the ticket reader forwards information, which can be stored on a barcode in the instance of tickets, to the game's or amusement's controller. The game or amusement device controller recognizes this information as card and/or ticket information and forwards the card and/or ticket information to a card and/or ticket validation system external to the gaming or amusement device. The card and/or ticket validation system analyzes the card and/or ticket information, and if the card and/or ticket is valid, the card and/or ticket validation system provides the game or amusement controller with an authorization to credit the gaming machine with the amount represented by the credits in the card system or represented by encoded value on the ticket.
Alternatively, if the card and/or ticket validation system detects that the card and/or ticket is not valid, the card and/or ticket validation system instructs the game or amusement controller to reject the card and/or ticket. The card and/or ticket validation system may also log the failed attempt in a database that will record the Information for future reference.
Card and/or ticketing benefits each patron, not just those wishing to access funds from or near the gaming and/or amusement device. Gaming and amusement establishments have also become familiar with the card and ticketing systems and their proven performance. Card and ticketing systems are proliferating within the gaming and amusement industry.
Electronic gaming machines either have fixed or variable wager amounts “per play”; that is, each individual wager is set at a certain monetary amount, be it $0.05, $0.25, $1.00, or some other value. This is similar to the concept that different casino chips have different denominations. Some electronic gaming machines permit the patron to change the “per play” value to suit his preference. Most machines also offer patrons the ability to place more than one “per play” wager on the outcome of any particular game. In slot machines, this is usually associated with the addition of additional paylines upon which a winning combination will be paid to the patron, increasing the chances of winning. In video poker, wagering additional per-play credits usually increases the amount of any winnings on a proportional basis. That is, wagering three per-play credits in lieu of just one will result in a winning hand paying a jackpot three times as large. It is common in video poker EGMs for a patron to become eligible for additional bonus awards and/or jackpot payouts when the maximum number of paylines are played. This often involves wagering more than one per-play credit for the play of one game.
A gaming device or system accepts cash or monetary-equivalent funds from a patron, holds the funds in the form of game play credits, represented by an equivalent monetary value, while the patron plays at the gaming or amusement device, and enables the patron to retrieve his unused game play credits at any time. Gaming and amusement devices provide a mechanism by which the patron can input and maintain a pool of money (i.e., credits) or amusement credits of non-monetary value in the gaming or amusement device to play many games of the gaming or amusement device.
By retaining a pool of game credits, gaming and amusement devices do not require the patron to input a wagerable or playable amount of money in the gaming or amusement device prior to each play. When the patron wins, the gaming or amusement devices adds the credits won to the patron's prior credits on the machine so the gaming or amusement device accumulates and stores the patron's winnings. When the patron wishes to stop playing, the gaming or amusement devices provide a mechanism by which the patron can retrieve the monetary or non-monetary value credits that remain in the pool.
In present gaming environments where transfer of funds to enable game play is expected to be seamless, the gaming or amusement device is required to have the ability in real-time to send and receive information pertaining to the patron, game content, game outcomes, and/or any number of other aspects of its normal operation, accept, validate, and process an amount of cash or monetary-equivalent credits that have been applied to the machine, convert any cash input to the machine into the proper amount of game or amusement credits, deduct the appropriate credits from the patron's credit balance for each game play, conduct the game, add or subtract an amount of credits that the patron wins or loses during game play, and effect an appropriate and accurate cash-out when the patron desires by converting remaining game play credits into cash or monetary-equivalent physical or electronic form for transfer as the patron directs. Usually, the gaming device's processor and memory systems provide these various functions in addition to various accounting and machine security functions.
The systems and management of table games in gaming environments differ from those used with gaming devices and/or electronic gaming machines (“EGMs”). EGMs are designed for unattended use by a patron and must therefore provide all of the services necessary to support game play, including acceptance of wagers, processing of input from the patron during play of the game, local determination and display of game outcomes or display of outcomes provided by a central determination system operatively connected to the EGM, recognition of a winning outcome, calculation and payment of any winnings to the patron, and support for ancillary functions including the acceptance of cash or other game play credit, printing dispensing of tickets, and the like. Most table games require the presence of one or more casino personnel to administer the game and provide the required ancillary functions. For example, while an EGM configured to provide video poker game will electronically randomize the card deck, deal, and display the patron's hand, an actual live poker game requires a dealer to shuffle and deal the cards. Similarly, where the EGM is configured to determine winning hands and to calculate and dispense any winnings, the live dealer table version of the same game requires a dealer to inspect the cards, determine outcomes, calculate any winnings, and pay the appropriate amounts.
Present live table game stations do not typically include the bill acceptors, ticket readers, and ticket printers now ubiquitous in modern EGMs. Instead, dealers at live table games receive cash and credit vouchers from patrons and dispense gaming chips for use on their table. Unlike EGMs, table games are often not connected to a networked casino management system (“CMS”) capable of exchanging data with a central server for the purpose of exchanging one or more monetary equivalent instruments for gaming chips. A system that would permit dealers of table games in gaming environments to provide patrons with a convenient and secure system for the purchase of gaming chips electronically would be a considerable improvement over the present art.
Obstacles to the use of systems to transfer funds electronically include security and fund transfer confirmation. Many regulatory agencies will not approve funds transfer systems that do not provide physical confirmation in durable form, such as a paper receipt, that an electronic transfer of funds has occurred. Providing a physical record of all such transactions would also improve overall system security and provide suitable means for patrons and casino operators to address any discrepancies that may arise. Accordingly, a system to transfer funds electronically that is suitable for use in a gaming environment or amusement environment would need to provide such evidence to obtain regulatory approval and to provide additional desired transaction security. Due to the absence of wired network access at most gaming tables, a further need exists to provide a system with wireless capability designed to retrieve funds at the patron's direction for efficient conversion into physical credit indicia, such as casino chips, rather than directly into the credit meter of a gaming device as may be preferred with a stand-alone EGM.
A casino patron may access funds in his financial account via an automated teller machine (“ATM”) or cash machine. While playing a game, if a patron runs out of cash and needs to access the funds in his bank account, he must stop the play at the gaming or amusement device, find an ATM, extract cash, convert the cash into a monetary equivalent (if necessary), and then return to the gaming or amusement device. If it is still available for play, the patron must then insert the cash or the monetary equivalent into the gaming or amusement device to continue play. Many patrons dislike this interruption in the gaming process due to the inconvenience and possibility of losing access to the gaming device or position to another patron. Once his gaming session is interrupted, the patron may elect not to return to the machine in favor of pursuing a non-gaming activity, thereby causing a loss of potential gaming revenue for the casino operator. There is, therefore, a need for a more convenient way for the patrons to access their funds while playing in a gaming or amusement environment without having to leave their device or position.
An ATM or cash machine operates over an ATM network such as NYCE, PLUS, STAR, or the like to transfer money from the account of a financial institution's customer to the ATM operator's account. The ATM operator or designated agent or representative is responsible for loading a supply of cash in the ATM, for the security of the cash, and for the maintenance of the ATM. Normally an ATM is connected to an ATM network, which may then securely connect to the customers' financial institution and required to access their accounts. Financial institutions and banks have a contractual relationship with the ATM network to transfer money from the customer's financial or bank account to the ATM network. The ATM network then dispenses cash to the customer, usually retaining a fee for their service.
Accordingly, a need exists for a secure and efficient electronic system to purchase credits that is suitable for approval and use in gaming environments and use in amusement environments that eliminates the reliance on stand-alone ATMs or cash machines to obtain cash for use in a gaming environment or in amusement devices at the gaming position. In order to obtain regulatory approval, such system should meet all requirements and performance criteria applicable to conventional ATM systems with respect to accounting for all electronic transactions. Any such transaction system for gaming should not require the conversion of funds from bank accounts into cash which must then be converted into game play credit. For cash management and security purposes, there is also a need for a purchasing process applicable to gaming and amusement devices and systems that does not require a large amount of cash in float in the gaming or amusement devices throughout the gaming or amusement facility. Furthermore, a need exists for a credit purchasing system that utilizes the card and/or ticketing system's hardware and software as much as possible to avoid duplication of such hardware and software. There is also a need for a less costly way for providing funds for gaming and amusement activities.